WASHINGTON, June 9 (UPI) -- The U.S. Commerce Department said Wednesday wholesale inventories during April posted their first decline since last August.
The government agency said wholesale inventories in April slipped 0.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted $301.16 billion after rising a revised 0.5 percent in March, originally reported as rising 0.6 percent.
Wall Street economists were expecting the dollar value of sales made and inventories held by merchant wholesalers to rise by 0.5 percent during the month.
The report showed wholesale sales jumped 0.8 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted $268.7 billion after surging a revised 2.9 percent in March, previously estimated to have increased 2.7 percent.
The inventory-to-sales ratio eased to 1.12 from March's 1.13. The ratio measures how many months it would take for a firm to exhaust its current inventory.
Inventories of durable goods, or items meant to last three or more years, were flat in April, while sales climbed 1.5 percent.
Inventories of nondurable goods slipped 0.2 percent. Petroleum stocks fell 0.6 percent. Groceries climbed 0.9 percent but drugs sank 2.6 percent.
The report showed sales of nondurable goods increased by 0.2 percent in April.
